The eyes chico… they never lie.

All the Scarface fans know what I’m talking about… that scene in the car.

“I know… the eyes chico… they never lie.”

Why then in today’s day and age do we depend so much on communicating with a screen? What was typed, what punctuation mark was used, how many exclamation points, how many question marks, caps lock or no caps lock, which emoticon she sent me…. what happened to reading the eyes chicos?! 🙂

There is a saying in Spanish – Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente – What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t feel.

When we communicate on paper, on email, on facebook, on whatsapp, on bbm chat or any other one of those million digital platforms available today… we lose the essence of what is real communication. As it is, language is a huge handicap when it comes to expressing ourselves. We are limited by vocabulary, grammar, punctuations, not being able to find the right words, not being able to say them in the right tone! My God! The multiple levels at which communication falters! Now multiply that by 10. That’s how much worse it becomes when it gets typed and communicated by lifeless text on a screen.

There was a story I had read many, many years ago by Paulo Coelho. I can’t seem to find it online now (maybe because it was part of a newsletter, and not one of his books). In that story he talked about a man who had been after Paulo for many months, trying to convince him to come to his town to give a talk. Numerous emails, letters, faxes and phone calls he made to Paulo’s office. No favourable response. He didn’t give up. He travelled many hundreds of miles and landed at a gathering Paulo was addressing in a town somewhere in Europe. He made his way to him and reminded him that he was the one who had been pursuing him for all those months. After the meeting, Paulo agreed and even made it to his town. Later when asked why the man didn’t give up, he said, “I realised I was doing it all wrong. When you really want something, you have to show your eyes.”

🙂

(This is how I remember the story now, I may not have got all the facts right).

So, the point I’m trying to make is this – the sooner we realize that the only ‘physical’ windows we have to a person’s soul are their eyes, the sooner we’ll be able to understand them. You can look into the eyes and really know what he or she is feeling, whether he or she means what they are saying… and sometimes not saying. As Paulo says – “No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.”

Most importantly, if you really love someone, no matter how hard you try to deny it, or run away from it or even say otherwise, it will show in your eyes.

Al Pacino agrees too. 🙂

So drop the pretense, stop hiding, stop trying to express yourself and communicate with futility via screens… just show up, and show your eyes. It will be enough.